ELFT HÍRADÓ

[Szeminárium koordinátor <sem-admin AT wigner.hun-ren.hu>]

SZFI SeminarAsbóth JánosHUN-REN Wigner RCP SZFIMacroscopic Quantum Mechanics 
in Electrical Circuits: the 2025 Nobel prize in PhysicsTuesday, 6 January 
2026, 10:00, KFKI Campus, Bldg. 1, 2nd floor, Conference RoomThe 2025 Nobel 
prize in physics was awarded to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. 
Martinis for their joint experimental work done in 1984-85, "the discovery of 
macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an 
electric circuit". The decision of the Nobel committee is likely not 
independent from later work of Devoret and Martinis on this experimental 
platform, which, building on "energy quantisation" led to the development of 
the transmon qubit, and to the rise of superconducting quantum computers 
championed by Google that we read so much about. But what is "macroscopic 
quantum tunneling"? How is it different from regular tunneling, or from the 
"tunneling phenomena in superconductors" that Josephson received the Nobel 
prize for in 1973? And how is it related to "the most fundamental problem of 
modern physics, over which philosophers as well as physicists have puzzled 
for decades" (quote from the 1983, Caldeira and Leggett paper, which derives 
the formula essential to the Clarke-Devoret-Martinis 
experiments)? Minden érdeklődőt szívesen látunk! - Everyone is welcome 
to attend.Attila Nagysem-admin AT wigner.hun-ren.hu